Well, in a distinctly odd move Harley Davidson have announce that Buell is no more. The company is having a hard time at the moment with their main customer base hit hard by the economic recession. HD have had to borrow just under $US 2billion from both the government and other sources to continue trading. It would seem that their strategy is to live off the borrowed funds untill the recession goes away and people start buying Harleys again. Is it just me or is that somewhat of a short sighted view of things? The first knee jerk reaction was to announce the end of Buell production, permanently as far as I can tell, and a hold on sportster production for the 4th quarter of 2009. The odd thing about the announcement is that although the Buell part of the company took a huge hit in the year to date in my not so humble opinion it would make more sense for HD to pursue this side of the market. Harley's normal demographic aren't going to recover from this recession in a huge hurry, and the first thing on their list of things to do is unlikely to be "go buy a new shiny motorcycle" so surely it would make more sense to try to gain traction in some different markets rather than trying to drag more funds out of its normal customers who simply don't have the available funds.

Buell could have been the brand that drove this alternate market and it scares me that they have no idea if canning the brand will actually make any difference to the financial problems the company is in. HD doesn't seem to mention if their are plans to sell the brand, we can only help as it would be a real shame to see such a great peice of machinery hit a brick wall... in the meantime it would appear that there are a few dealers offering some incredible deals... maybe go buy one!

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